Fact check: Video altered to show Joe Biden ignoring British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·2 min read
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The claim: Video shows Joe Biden ignoring Rishi Sunak

An April 12 Instagram video shows President Joe Biden disembarking a plane and greeting a group of officials on the tarmac.

"Arriving in Belfast, the Biden (sic) did not recognize the Prime Minister of Great Britain and pushed the 'boy' away to salute the gray-haired military man," reads on-screen text.

The post garnered more than 9,000 likes in a week. Similar versions of the post have been shared on Facebook and Twitter.

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Our rating: Altered

The clip of Biden greeting and shaking hands with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was removed from the video. Biden did not ignore Sunak.

Sunak wasn't ignored by Biden

Amid a great level of political unrest, Biden visited Belfast on April 11 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of civil war in Northern Ireland.

The Instagram post features a Sky News broadcast of Biden arriving in Belfast. The full, unedited footage shows Biden greeting and shaking hands with Sunak before turning and saluting the uniformed man beside him.

This interaction with Sunak was edited out of the video shared on Instagram to make it appear as though Biden immediately pushed him away.

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Similar footage of Biden speaking with Sunak after he landed was captured by The Guardian and The Telegraph.

The edited video was also shared on Twitter by a user who shared misinformation previously debunked by USA TODAY.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment, but they didn't immediately respond.

The claim was also debunked by Lead Stories, AFP and Reuters.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Video altered to show Joe Biden ignoring Rishi Sunak